A:

Luisa Zecchinato's cooking class was the main occupation of the day. I had pre- booked this some time ago and the girls and Mick and I were all keen to go. Luisa has been running cooking classes for some time and spends time each year in Boston where she stays with friends and cooks for them. Her English is perfect, having lived in the USA as well. The taxi driver had a little difficulty finding her place- "Cooking at the Villa" as it is out of town but in the end we arrived at the appointed time- 10.45 am. (I had good directions from Luisa but the taxi driver chose to go another way and not on the expressway and this was a little confusing.)

M:

Fortunately the directions mentioned a concrete wall and a yellow crane. Once we spotted the crane, the only challenge was to remember the Italian word for crane - gru- which is not one I have used very often. We suggested to Luisa that she may want to develop a set of directions in Italian that can be given to taxi drivers.

A:

We were her only "students" for the class. Luisa was very welcoming and explained what we were doing while making coffee for us. (M: We were really in her own rather spacious kitchen - complete with wood burning stove - which was a necessity given that the frost was still on the ground at noon.) We prepared "thyme and dried tomatoes focaccia", "pumpkin ravioli served with crispy sage and butter sauce", and "corn and almond crumble with sabayon". She added "tagliatelle with sundried tomato pesto" while we were underway and then doubled up the pesto by spreading it on her (previously) home - cooked bread as an appetiser when we started to get hungry. Luisa also provided a light rose and a bottle of Merlot with the pasta, and then she served the crumble with grappa which you could pour over it if you wanted. For some of us this was an acquired taste. Personally I found the crumble and sabayon were perfect partners. We sat down together in her homey dining room to eat what we had prepared and everything was delicious and so much fun to prepare together. Luisa is a very good chef and teacher and a really nice person who was happy to chat with us as we cooked and ate. She gave me a small bottle of a liqueur called Vov (similar to egg nog she said) to take away after I enjoyed sampling it.) and then she drove us back to our unit. All in all the time spent was very enjoyable. There was some Christmas shopping to be completed in the afternoon before a quiet evening. Needless to say there was not much need of food after our fantastic lunch. (M: Elias seemed not to have pined away in our absence!)